While Fundilicious Palin has been soaking up the airwaves, the Bush team has been ever so busy with their Going Out of Business sales: big deals for friendly arms merchants, a war in Pakistan - and at best upping the pressure, at worst preparing an attack on Iran. Fun times, eh? Let’s start with Iran.

Ho-hum. Pulitzer-winning journalist reports that the Bushies cobbled up fake evidence to justify a war of choice. Yawn. Pulitzer-winning journalist reports that Cheney mulled having US sailors shoot at Navy SEALs in Iranian garb to justify starting another war of choice. Snore. Republican presidential candidate offers up his wife to be "Miss Buffalo Chip" at Sturgis, a signal honor that requires the prospective titleholder to, among other things, parade around topless and publicly simulate oral sex on a banana. Will the GOP/Media Complex will interrupt their transmission of McCain and Rove campaign talking points to seriously discuss any of this?

Last month I wrote about how the right-wing fake-friends of Israel in American Jewry were coming after Joe Klein -- a member of the Tribe -- for saying something that all of us DC Jews acknowledge to be true, which is that a bunch of our neocon co-religionists, out of ignorance or mendacity, seek to steer American policy in the direction of a misguided belief of what's good for Israel. Now they've stepped up their attacks on Joe -- and he's fighting back.

Bob Gates knocks down the war hawks' plans for Iran -- perhaps not unusual, except that he works for George W. Bush.

From Haaretz last week:Former Mossad Chief Ephraim Halevy told Time magazine in an interview published Thursday that an Israeli attack on Iran "could have an impact on us for the next 100 years" and should only be considered as a last resort. Halevy, who currently heads the Center for Strategic and Policy Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, added that an Iranian attack on Israel would probably have little impact.

In an interview with GRITtv, Iranian born author Roya Hakakian says that on Iran, the Democratic nominee-elect isn't saying or doing anything that hasn't been done for years. So much for change.

I'm sure we're all holding our breath for the day when Israel is subject to such threats for having nukes and being willing to use them. Oh, but it's not in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, you say? Excellent, I'm sure if Iran drops out the West will just forget the whole thing!

Condoleezza Rice was speaking about the meeting this weekend with the Iranians: "I think we have done enough to demonstrate that the United States is serious and to assure our partners that we are serious and to show the Iranians that we are serious. I think we have done enough," Rice said.

On the rare occasions when Team Bush or their fellow Republican office-holders do something almost sensible, it's often something that they and their media buddies have attacked Democrats for doing or proposing. The planned meeting in Switzerland between US and Iranian envoys is just the latest example.

Ah, John McCain, steps on the rake once again. Having mocked Obama for wanting to have a "heart-to-heart" with Ahmadinejad, it appears that McCain is going to have to get in line and do the same.